Author
Topic: Paladin Press closing (Read 7731 times)

News of this over at Claire Wolfe's blog: http://www.clairewolfe.com/blog/2017/09/26/bad-news-bad-news-good-news/TLDR version: The founder/owner died back in June, the business will completely close Dec 31, there's about to be a blow-out sale so stay tuned, and the various authors will have the rights to their works back in their hands to re-sell/publish as they see fit.

Any particular gems you might recommend? I might just pick up a couple if they're good books at a decent price.

Guns, Bullets and Gunfighting by Jim CirilloTales of the Stakeout Squad by Paul KirchnerYou can probably get both as a bundle

A lot of older shooting texts like Shooting to Live by Fairbairn and Sykes, Shooting by Fitzgerald

Claire Wolfe has a number of books through them on living liberty if I remember correctly.

It is the only place I know of to get anything on how to fight with a Tomahawk (not that it is a high demand thing, but hey I think Tomahawks are cool). Dwight C. McLemore has two books and a DVD on it.

Some of Mel Tappan's books are still on there, a classic of survival and firearms literature. Surviving Doomsday. All the works of the unlikely, but intriguingly named survival author "Ragnar Benson." If his books are as good as his name, he is a giant. Never dove into him personally.

It is the only source of some of DVDs of the greats of point shooting like Rex Applegate. Jeff Cooper has a DVD in there. They also have The Ultimate Sniper by MAJ John Plaster, as close to a single volume bible of sniping as exists.

It is the only place I know of to get anything on how to fight with a Tomahawk (not that it is a high demand thing, but hey I think Tomahawks are cool). Dwight C. McLemore has two books and a DVD on it.

The Cold Steel DVD on tomahawk fighting is very good. It is especially valuable in that it teaches you how to practice.

I have quite a few of the paladin press on demand videos. Two of my favorite are the crash course on orienteering and the video on muzzleloading. Both are no-nonsense practical guides. You can download them but they still have copy protection on them so need to use the apprpriate player. Guess i will need to video capture them. I doubt any are on youtube as they were pretty strongly IP protected.

I ordered some of Palster's books and videos on sniping, plus some other marksmanship books, a book about the Rhodesian War, two works by Mike Hoare and a book on emergency response. I had to control myself to keep the list within reason.

Might pick up a few more, but I didn't want to buy on a whim and held off!

Yeah, chances are most of their titles will never be published as printed books, anymore. The rights are all being reverted back to the authors.

That means the authors now have to try and shop their books around and that ain't going to be pretty. Most will probably turn to online publishing, specifically Amazon Kindle.

Many of the books can easily be found online in .pdf format, already. Up until a couple of years ago, Paladin aggressively enforced their publishers/printing rights. Recently, that has gone by the wayside as they slowly and inevitably faded away.

Part of their problem was the decision to sell directly to Amazon. Originally, they only sold through their website or over the phone through ads in magazines and via catalog. They then went and sold to dealers who quickly turned online to Amazon and Ebay. For the longest time, Paladin did not sell through Amazon. They were too "nichey" for Amazon's tastes.

Up until 2005, you could seldom find any "New" Paladin Books online. Most were resold by individuals or second-hand book stores. Then one company went and opened the "niche" and sold Paladin books brand new via Amazon. From 2006 until around 2012, they were the only consistent sellers of Paladin's entire catalog on Amazon. In 2012, however, others started selling and then two things happened: First, larger international sellers, usually a quiet division of book distributors who would sell the books online, took notice and started selling. About the same time, Amazon came forward to Paladin and offered to carry the titles, directly.

This led to a major price war. With only one or two sellers, the prices of Paladin's books and DVD's remained within 10-15% of the retail prices. When Amazon started selling, though, those prices dropped practically overnight to around 50% to 45% of advertised retail cost.

Paladin was never set up to sell high volumes of books at wholesale prices. With more and more people buying directly from Amazon and with Paladin's own inability to compete with their own customers, profits took a MASSIVE nosedive. Add in some of Amazon's back-handed tactics such as not paying within the promised time or (my personal favorite):

Amazon might place one order for, say, 100 books of each title. The agreement Amazon generally makes is that they'll keep those books for 90 days and then return whatever doesn't sell. In both cases, the publisher has to eat the shipping costs.

So, Amazon will then say they will take 90 days to pay from the final date. They will tally up how many sold in that time and remit payment 90 days after they ship the books back. Meanwhile, 30 days before the original 90 days is up, they'll place another order for 100 books of each title and want them there a week or more before the original order is sent back (otherwise, there may be a gap in sales). So, the publisher then has to ship another 100 titles out. They won't get paid for AT LEAST 180 days from the original order, but will end up carrying a minimum of two large purchases, plus the shipping and handling.

And THEN, they have to try and compete with Amazon's prices. For example, The Ultimate Sniper retailed at $71 + Shipping and Handling if you purchased it directly from Paladin. After Amazon started carrying it, they dropped the price IMMEDIATELY to around $42 + Free Shipping. Several of the larger sellers dropped prices lower than that to compete with Amazon's back-stabbing listing policy of posting their prices first unless the other sellers' prices were cheaper than their price, minus the $3.99 shipping and handling fee (In other words, Amazon's prices would always be at the top at, say, $42. If another seller had the lower price of $40.99, it would still not lead the listing. Only a seller who had a price of $38 ($42 minus $3.99 and minus an additional penny) would show above the Amazon price. Amazon justified this by claiming that they were giving free shipping, so the $40.99 was still more expensive than what they offered).

Now, imagine a publishing house who had to carry half a year's sales consistently AND lost their retail sales to the people they were providing books to.

Paladin once had a massive 30,000 square foot facility just outside Boulder, Colorado and had upwards, IIRC, of 20 employees. Just before the owner died, I believe they had something like six people crammed into an 1100 square foot rented facility in town and resorted to having a single distributor do most of their storage and shipping.

This was, in my professional opinion, inevitable. Amazon has destroyed the print publishing industry as was evidenced about 5-7 years ago with many of the major publishing houses closing their doors. Most of them had their business plans based upon direct consumer sales. It was originally unimaginable that the consumer would be able to buy their books at 30%-50% off even on release day.

Some publishers were able to adapt and continue on, but not many. Paladin, in my personal opinion, seemed to refuse to adapt even though they were given answers on how to fix their problem (the answer was simple: stop selling directly to Amazon). But, several people were of the opinion that when Amazon finally did pay, it was a rather large sum of money and the powers-that-were at Paladin were afraid of losing it.

Additionally, the owner(s) of Paladin were getting old. They had barely weathered the Hit Man lawsuit of 1999 and were unable to quickly sell their aforementioned 30,000 square-foot facility, even at a time when storage space was at a ridiculous premium in Colorado due to the new pot laws.

Many of the original upper management left Paladin starting about 2012. At the end, it was (to the best of my knowledge) only the owner and his wife making the final decisions. They seemed to stubbornly stick to their 1980's heyday direct sales plan, doing what they had to do to keep a healthy check coming in. But, their products were still based upon a 30-40 year old concept and it seemed they almost refused to bring it into the 21st Century (e.g., better video editing techniques, new product lines, different advertising venues, etc.).

Don't get me wrong, they were not bad people. In fact the owner was, IIRC, originally an American Special Forces Advisor in Viet Nam and did some merc work for a while. He did a lot of stuff with Robert K. Brown, the owner of Soldier of Fortune magazine back in the 60's, 70's and 80's that was, to many, real alpha-male stuff. He was also an all-around nice guy, especially to his friends. But, sometimes inertia is hard to fight, especially when you're not open-minded enough to change a way of doing things that have been done a certain way for over 40 years.

I'm sad to see them go, but not surprised. They lasted two more years than I originally predicted under their own momentum. Grab their books, it's doubtful you'll ever see some of them, again.

Just some random thoughts from a person who was once in a position to know these things.

It is interesting how some publishing businesses adapt and others dont. For example the American Gunsmithing Institute (http://www.americangunsmith.com) has been able to transform from a professionally focussed set course, to hobbyist VHS based instructional videos, and now a diverse monthly publication with curated reviews of emerging tech with the gun club of america. It isnt just about taking old content and putting it in a new format. It is about creating new content that draws upon the older content as a foundation but branches off in new and exciting ways.

It is rather regretful how the antics of entities like Amazon can really impede upon the niche markets that people like us like to access.

I am taking a look at a couple extra titles to order for myself, plus some extras for friends and groups that I am associated with. There were a number of interesting books on marksmanship, tactical shooting and related themes that would seem difficult to find elsewhere, and provide plenty of activities to keep the avid reader busy putting into practice.

I also appreciate access and insights into interesting periods of history like the Rhodesian Bush War and the adventures of Hoare, etc. It looks as though I will get some interesting bedtime reading out of this unfortunate event.

Thanks I4L. Time to pick up some of the pricey history books, a few spares & loaners, a couple of nice-to-haves and curiosities.

Yeah, we did the same thing. My wife just ordered my christmas gift, pretty much their entire catalog on medieval combat. It is an interest I've had since a kid but never spent the money to delve into. But at $2 to $3 a book and a chance many will go out of print, the time seemed right.

Received the last package from them today. It's sad to see them finally go. Much like that older veteran who you'd visit once or twice a year, yes you knew the end had to come someday, but when it finally arrives it's still a shock.

Paladin Press, Boulder's chronicler of combat, to shut down after 47 yearsPublisher took its final orders Wednesday, to be closed by year's end

The announcement comes less than six months after the death of Peder Lund, Paladin Press' co-founder and publisher, who died suddenly June 3 while on vacation in Finland, according to the publication's website.

Paladin press was founded in 1970 by Lund and Robert K. Brown, the future publisher of Boulder's Soldier of Fortune magazine.

Brown, a Boulder resident, said in an interview Thursday that his interest in Paladin Press was bought out by Lund in 1974.

"Everything has its time," Brown said. "They certainly had an interesting series of books over the years, no question about that."

I am really going to miss them. For all the nonsense that was published under their imprint, they broke ground for years on really understanding the world of shooting. So many other publishers simply published works on guns, they were one of the few to actually look at gunfighters. The Indian, not the arrow.

I am really thankful to you fellows for posting about this sale. I am currently on the final chapters of Mike Hoare`s Congo Mercenary and greatly enjoying it. I picked up some interesting reads on long range precision shooting and military history, along with some other related topics. A couple of my friends will also appreciate some of the books I got for them at great discounts.

I know a lot of people were sad when Paladin went out of business. Maybe Prepper Press will take up some of the slack. I saw this announcement yesterday:

Quote

Prepper Press Acquires Rights to James Ballou’s Survivalist Titles

Paladin Press, a long-term publisher of survivalist books, went out of business at the end of 2017. They published many great books that are now no longer available. Prepper Press, however, acquired rights to one of their best authors, James Ballou, adding to their inventory five of his survivalist and skill-based titles. BEST OF ALL – they’re now less expensive than they were with Paladin Press!